Fragile: YES @ the Saratoga Mountain Winery

Chris Squire has now almost completed the total ruination of the group he co-founded (with Jon Anderson) in 1968 -- YES.

This became apparent during last night's show at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA -- a venue chosen by the professor of pop because he assumed that the show might include one decent performance of one decent song (it did -- 'Astral Traveller') & therefore if you are dragging your sweetheart to said criminal act upon music you'd better hitch it to a nice weekend away.

ASIA played some semblance of a supporting set, most of which we were delighted to miss while sucking down super-perf creme brulee, & anyway there is no need to delve too deeply into such unpleasantries. Not unless one wishes to take a hammer to a band that seemed fit only for a very brief set in between the bingo at a working-men's club.

My mum Sally Goodwin always wished that she could hire YES to play at the working-men's club (The Unity Club, on Southampton Road) across the street from where we grew up. (Eventually our house was torn down & They built a new Unity Club on the foundations of the slum, sorry, home where the prof once played 'Close To The Edge ' 17 times a day.) Well guess what? In its current form you probably could hire YES to play your kid's birthday party. Chris Squire, if sufficiently renumerated, would no doubt call the bingo numbers for you and hand out pressies dressed as a clown.

The prof did actually yell BINGO related declamations at the stage during last night's performance, so appalled was he by this hubristic insult to progressive rock. We left during the beginning of the encore ('Starship Trooper') because -- like the closer ('Heart Of The Sunrise') -- it was yet another showcase for Chris Squire's shameless corruption of his considerable talents.

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The trouble begins long before Bill Bruford quit the band, in 1972. Arguments between Bruford the drummer & Squire the bassist centered on the crucial question of whether the kick/bass drum should always slaveishly mirror the bass guitar part, or whether in fact the drummer might actually be a musician. When Bruford left, the destruction of YES began. Squire recruited Alan White to replace him. That change, from a drummer who swings & surprises to a plodder who rocks out in all manner of time signatures but who rocks out nonetheless, guaranteed global mega-success for YES.

Chris Squire clearly does not understand that alongside rhythm, timbre is the other crucial aesthetic component in popular music. How else can we explain the attempt to replace Jon Anderson's voice first with Trevor Horn (who at least attempted to bring his own vocal inflections to the music) & now with a singer from a YES tribute band, David Benoit?

He hits the notes, does David. He in fact mimicks like a prog parrot. He even has gimmicks. Such as pretending to shoot the audience with a pretend gun, somewhat in the manner of Alan Partridge. But not only does he not originate -- that could be forgiven -- he also has a capacity that is often to be found in singers in tribute bands: his voice has no personality. The grain in the vox, 'tis lacking. And all this nonsense from YES fans saying Benoit can hit the high notes misses the point completely. Yes, he hits the high notes. But when he does so you have no idea why he is doing that.

It is rather like watching Squire, White & guitarist Steve Howe (alongside Rick Wakeman's son Oliver on keyboards) having an affair, in public. As if they don't know that we've noticed that it's not the wife, it's the mistress. And she's playing Rock Band! In fact, she's so busy doing karoake that there's no time to speak to the audience. Yes, the front man never fronted. Never said a word.

Squire & Howe did all the patter. Because if David had tried that, well then the audience would know that the Jon Anderson puppet vox he was deploying is not in fact his speaking voice. Of course this is the norm in acting, rock shows & so forth. What is unusual is going to such lengths to conceal this.

The thing about YES is that unlike, say, Genesis or Pink Floyd or Jethro Tull or King Crimson, they used to be hyper-funky. The first YES shows, back in the late 60's, featured an extended 20-min plus jam on 'In The Midnight Hour'. And so the nadir of last night's performance was not a song but a bit of patter. Squire, introducing Howe's pointless acoustic gtr solo bit, suggested that since Howe had just played a whole set with ASIA (highlight: 'Video Killed The Radio Star') he had now replaced James Brown as "the hardest working man in show business".

This brought the prof instantly to his feet: "Absolute rubbish!" he yelled. "Play 'Sex Machine'! IF YOU CAN!"

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So anyway. The VIP 'Meet & Greet'. It was awkward. Susan was cringing & begging me to leave.


POP: "So. Alan. How does it feel to have reduced one of the most rhythmically complex bands in the history of popular music to a factory-fed headless chick op?"

AW: "Nice to see you again! Would you like an autograph? Hey, thanks for coming!"


POP: "So. Steve. Were you being ironic, during the solo on 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'"?

SH: [walks off]


POP: "So. Oliver. Don't you think that your dad's nineteenth-century approach to the keyboards needs a little updating, now that the younger generation are replacing their parents in rock groups?"

OW: "Chris told me to play it just like it was on the records."


POP: "So. Chris. This is the second time you've tried to replace Jon Anderson as the lead singer in YES. Trevor Horn was a disaster. Have you considered re-hiring him, since the new guy is even worse?"

CS: "Uh? Hey listen, sorry, um, I, er, well look Trevor's busy. And check this out -- I know who Linkin Park are, OK? So, you know, I think I'm a little hipper than, you know, some of these old proggers."


POP: "So. David. Is it in your contract that you are not allowed to speak directly to the audience?"

DB: [silence]

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The wine was good though.

Happy Interdependence Day.

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Image courtesy of Susan Hellein.